Turkey Calls for Use of Force against Bashar Al-Assad’s Regime

Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik has called for the usage of military force against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday. According to Celik, only this would allow preventing of Assad’s “atrocities against civilians.”

“The world needs to use force to stop the massacres,” Celik said. “We have always talked about a political solution until now but we know how Assad blocked political solution processes. When the political solution is alive, the answer given by Assad is [use of] chemical weapons,” he added.

The Turkish Minister did not clarify whether Ankara would be ready to provide troops for any military actions against the Syrian government, which is supported by Russia and Iran.

“Assad must end his policy of killing through the use of chemical or standard weapons,” Celik added. “Otherwise, the political solution will not be put in practice.”

Also on Wednesday, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Veysi Kaynak once again accused the Syrian government of a chemical attack in Idlib province and said that it was not the first such attack, carried out by the Assad’s “regime”.

“The decision of the United Nations to start an investigation is not enough,” Kaynak said. “It must be brought directly to the Hague International Criminal Court.”

“Former US President [Barack] Obama had said the chemical attacks were their redline. After that our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said ‘is killing people with conventional weapons not as important as killing them with chemical weapons?’” he added.

“We cannot ignore the fact that death is death after a bomb kills a patient in a hospital, a child in a school or a woman at a market place,” Kaynak said, accusing the international community of being “insensitive” to the Assad’s crimes.

According to the Turkish Deputy Prime Minister, the US intervention in Syria is “hopeful,” while support, provided by Moscow and Tehran to Assad’s “regime”, is “upsetting”.

“There is a killer who is able to use chemical weapons against his citizens, against the vulnerable people, and he [Assad] is your ally, and you are protecting him,” he said.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Office of Civil Defense in the Syrian province of Daraa, Mohammed al-Zuz, told Anadolu that the Assad’s government continues to use barrel bombs, justifying it by the US interference in the situation in Syria.

According to al-Zuz, on April 12, the Syrian Air Force dropped eight barrel bombs on Deraa El-Beled settlement, controlled by the ‘moderate’ opposition in Daraa province. He noted that nobody was killed or wounded, but many houses were destroyed in the town.

According to the news agency, al-Zuz said that since the beginning of April, attacks of the Syrian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces on Daraa have intensified. He claimed that since early April, Syrian helicopters have dropped 78 barrel bombs on the province’s territory.

The administrative center of Daraa province is divided into two parts: Deraa Mahata (the new city) in the north and Deraa Beled (the old city) in the south. The Syrian government forces control the most part of Deraa Mahata.

In conclusion, Anadolu reminded that on April 10, Washington said that the US President Donald Trump’s administration would take retaliatory measures after each usage of chemical weapons or barrel bombs by the Assad’s regime. Apparently, news agency’s journalists remembered statements of White House spokesman Sean Spicer, who mistakenly equated barrel bombs with chemical weapons. In their propaganda fervor, the Turks forgot to clarify the facts.